From time to time I will post a review of a book I believe might be of interest to the Department of Washington members. This will be a recurring feature but with no specific periodicity. If you have a review you wish to submit please send an email to the webmaster to discuss the issue. The webmaster reserves the right to publish, or not, any submissions for any reason what so ever.
FAITHFUL WARRIORS, A COMBAT MARINE REMEMBERS THE PACIFIC WAR, BY Lt. Col. Dean Ladd, USMCR (Ret.) and Steven Weingartner. Published by the Naval Institute Press. 228 pages.
I have known Marine Ladd (addressed that way as he is a member of the MCL) since I joined in 1994. To be honest I didn't know what to expect when I started to read his book. To both my surprise and delight I found the book to be very readable and it moved at a fast, but not to fast, pace. The account starts when Marine Ladd was in undergraduate as an engineriing major Washington State in Pullman, Wa. He enlisted in the Marine Reserves and in a short time was called up for duty in World War II.
The book is written from the perspective of the author and does not get into the overall strategy or tactics of the war in the pacific. What it does do it detail his time first as an enlisted man and then an officer in 1st Battalion 8th Marines. While the book is written from Marine Ladd's view point he gives ample opportunity for other privates, nco's, staff nco's as well as company and field grade officers with which he served. In some ways this reads like a novel but it is, no doubt, a recount of the war through the eyes of the Marines of 1/8 that fought the war hopping from island to island.
When Marine Ladd wraps up his book he also writes about what it was like to visit the same islands 40 and 50 years later and his chance meetings with some former Japanese soldiers who fought in the same campaigns but, obviouisly, from the other side.
If you expect me to actual excerpt the book...forget it. Contact Marine Dean Ladd and get a copy. He will most likely, if you ask him, authograph it for you. You should read this one for yourself because it is a very good read. I wish it had been out when I was much younger so I could have read it before I joined the Corps.
Semper Fi,
Dennis
